Scaling laws of disk lasers

Limit of power from amplified spontaneous emission (ASE), round-trip loss, and overheating is considered within simple model. The optimization of the output power with respect to size of the pumped region, its thickness and round-trip gain leads to the scaling laws for these parameters. In vicinity of the limit of power scaling, the round-trip loss should scale inversely proportional to the cubic root of the desired output power. This prediction agrees with the experimental data. The use of the thick undoped layer (anti-ASE cap) allows to increase for an order of magnitude the maximal power achievable at the same round-trip loss.